TNAG-1726-FCO40-2439-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 42

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HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Martin

LEE, you have given notice of wishing to move an amendment. You may wish to move it now.

MR. MARTIN LEE :

Sir, the

motion standing in the name of the Chief Secretary is singularly lame and spectacularly ineffectual. Indeed, in its present form, it matters not whether the motion is passed, defeated or just ignored.

In the debate on the 1984 White Paper, on the 9th

January 1985, the motion was that this Council welcomes

the plans and intentions described in the White Paper on the further development of representative government in Hong Kong. So one would naturally have expected

the Government to move a similar motion for this 16. White Paper.

Best 11in

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Si

best to his

j sulmit Kat it is

is in my submission irresponsible

for the Government to move such a motion at the end

of such a long and controversial political review,

which has cost, the taxpayers over $9 million.

cost the

Never

before has our Government consulted its people on

such a large scale and never before has the Government

come up with a white Paper that is so totally disappointing.

Indeed, Sir, as I have observed elsewhere, this White

Paper is whiter inside than outside.

Of course, the Government realises

29. that this white Paper is not going to be welcomed by

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the public. That is why it does not even dare to

move a motion with the word 'welcome' in it, for

fear, no doubt, that there would be quite a number

of Legislative Councillors voting against it. In

truth and in fact, this motion shows only too clearly

that our Government lacks the courage of its own conviction about its own policies. as set out in